Graduated from the Department of Electronic Engineering of Tsinghua University and received a master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in the United States. He founded ChinaRen, a large-scale Internet portal in China, at the age of only 25. He founded Kong Kong.com in 2002 and led Kong Kong.com to launch on Nasdaq in the United States in 2004.
Gram is listed on the market.
When people were speculating about what kind of business legend he would create next, in 2008, he made an elegant turn and went from being a famous member of the golden generation of the Internet to entering politics in a low-key manner, serving as deputy director of the Beijing Zhongguancun Management Committee. In 2011, he was appointed
Deputy Head of Changping District.
Dream spreads. ChinaRen is founded by returnees. Zhou Yunfan, who graduated from the Department of Electronic Engineering at Tsinghua University in 1997, got his wish and went to Stanford University in the United States to study for a master's degree.
"26 and 1" is a story Zhou Yunfan often tells his friends.
There were more than 30 classmates in the same class at the university, 27 of whom went abroad to study, and he was the only one who came back.
"25% of the engineers in Silicon Valley in the United States are of Chinese descent. They work and live there, marry and have children, and have made great contributions to the U.S. economy. As entrepreneurs who have returned from studying abroad, we hope to contribute to the development of China. We have
Responsibility has an obligation to play one’s part”.
Zhou Yunfan said.
He has always had a hope: "What we do is bigger than a company." When he was studying at Stanford, Zhou Yunfan met his future partner Yang Ning and decided to move the successful model of American websites to China.
After returning to China in 2000, they jointly launched the ChinaRen website, pioneering a campus virtual community featuring alumni records. "Everyone goes to ChinaRen" became the most fashionable advertising slogan at the time.
Once ChinaRen appeared, it quickly entered the top 10 in the domestic rankings.
In particular, the alumni directory has become the most attractive brand of the website.
Zhou Yunfan recalled: "At that time, our advantages were very obvious: first, we were familiar with the cultures of the two places, and American venture capitalists would be more confident in investing funds in entrepreneurs with overseas return backgrounds; second, we had a strong technical team. At that time,
There are very few people who have graduated from universities such as Harvard and Stanford in the United States and returned to China; thirdly, the development of the Internet has just started in the Chinese market, with many opportunities and huge market potential."
Relying on the vigorous and turbulent Internet entrepreneurship wave at the time, ChinaRen received investment support from investment bank Goldman Sachs.
Zhou Yunfan said: "At that time, we were only 26 years old. It can be said that we were high-spirited and had 100 degrees of entrepreneurial passion, but our business knowledge was almost zero." After receiving US$10 million in venture capital, ChinaRen has never found a clear goal.
profit model.
Like other websites, it focuses on grabbing the attention of netizens and expanding the influence of the brand.
To this end, funds are mostly spent on advertising.
In order to seize the prime advertising space on road signs across the country, Zhou Yunfan signed a thick stack of advertising orders with a total value of more than 40 million yuan in just 6 hours.
"No one is thinking about how to make money. The model recognized by the industry is: everyone is trying their best to expand their popularity and think that making money is something that will happen in the future. And the feedback from investors and the market is: it is not yet time for you to think about making money.
"If the money is burned, there will still be money left." Zhou Yunfan recalled.
In 2000, the Internet bubble began to burst, and Sohu acquired ChinaRen for US$30 million.
Zhou Yunfan entered Sohu's management and served as executive vice president and general manager.
Regarding starting his own business for the first time, Zhou Yunfan gave himself "60 points, just passed the test."
"The Internet era has brought me experiences that are more valuable than wealth. What many others have spent 10 or 20 years harvesting may not be as much as what I have harvested in one or two years."
Zhou Yunfan said, "This feeling is like a roller coaster, very fast, falling from the top to the bottom."
Riding the Wind and Waves Two years after Kong Kong.com was listed in the United States, 28-year-old Zhou Yunfan started his own business again and founded Kong Kong.com in Zhongguancun with Yang Ning.
When Zhou Yunfan started his second business, he was in urgent need of funds, but at that time many venture capitalists refused to invest again due to lack of confidence.
As a result, he and Yang Ning sold their respective 440,000 shares in Sohu and gave up all options.
When Zhou Yunfan recalled this experience, he sighed: "A person must be able to endure loneliness and temper. I didn't understand this at the time. I sold all my shares when Sohu's stock price was at its lowest. Now it's 30 per share."
"This is a loss of 20 to 30 million US dollars." After paying the 500,000 US dollars to register Kong Kong.com, the capital chain broke again, and the two were almost at the end of their rope.
In desperation, Zhou Yunfan and Yang Ning went to Hong Kong again in the summer of 2002, trying to persuade investment banks to invest.
Zhou Yunfan said: "I remember that the summer in Hong Kong was very hot that year. The investment banks were concentrated in a very small area in Central. There was no way to take a taxi, so each of us took a computer bag and swept the floors floor by floor." The two of them left like this.
After visiting more than 20 investment banks and VCs, Zhou Yunfan finally received an investment of US$3 million, and Zhou Yunfan started his entrepreneurial journey again.
Of course, when Kong Kong was listed in the United States two years later, the value of this $3 million investment increased more than 30 times, and was worth $100 million.